HTC Has Made A Phone To Pair With Your Phone–Also Known As Going Full Retard

Let’s face it: HTC has been doing some pretty stupid things as of late. But we thought they was trying to get out of that funk somewhat successfully by concentrating on making great (eg. not quirky with lights and doodads) phones. But it seems their penchant for making dumb accessories and/or unnecessarily complicating up the phone has gone back in regression with the introduction of their ridiculous phone-in-a-phone HTC Mini, designed for their new 1080p-screened Butterfly. “Why,” you ask? Because apparently the Taiwanese company believes you need a phone to pair with your phone so you can phone while you phone. I can’t even begin to explain how retarded that sounds and how retarded this “accessory” is. I mean, why not just use the original phone? Or better yet, why not get another phone instead of a stupid shell of a phone? Oh HTC.

So the HTC Mini is some sort of Bluetooth & NFC-powered device that pairs with your HTC Butterfly (it is bundled with the Butterfly in China and it is so far exclusive to the country) and lets you control your 5” 1080p Quad-Core phone without touching it. Sort of like the idea of those connected smart watches except its built in a form of a bog-standard pocket-needing remote control / bar phone with a screen. The screen and device will let you know if you have any new notifications, texts, calendar events, and so on. You can also use it to control the media player on your device (like a remote), ping your device if its missing, or trigger the camera when you’re using it remotely – you know, like a usual smart watch type device would do. Except, it’s like a whole new damn thing to put in your pocket, shaped like a phone, that does absolutely nothing except let you use another phone. With a large 5” phone already in one pocket, where the hell will you put another phone-shaped device? Why can’t you just pick up your damn phone and not waste money and pocket-space for this lame cash-in excuse for an accessory? Its just so damn stupid. And since its HTC, we all know it ain’t going to be cheap.

We admit, to some – and we mean a very very very small number – of consumers, this might be a pretty interesting device to have. A possible media controller for your device (or even remote shutter / phone locator) isn’t a bad thing. But catering to extremely small niches has always been the downfall of HTC. (nobody cares about Beats, nobody cares about the Rhyme, nobody cares about the Flyer) And it still doesn’t change the fact that this should have just been a watch accessory and not a stupid fake-phone. In this extremely saturated and competitive market, why are they bothering with this kind of crap? HTC, just make the best phone you can possibly make and let somebody else make the shitty accessories.

Note: None of the smart watch accessories have integrated into phones that well at all; and all of them still chew through your battery life (since it uses a constant Bluetooth connection). Plus they essentially prevent you from pairing your device to other, more important devices.

Click the video below to watch some Chinese dudes tell you (in Chinese – no translated captions) how much you will lurve your HTC Mini.